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Brewing in a hot climate
I live in AZ, and the temperatures here can get too hot in the summertime for brewing beer. I am not familiar with cider brewing. At what temperature range can you brew cider? For anyone else that resides in a hot climate, what brews/fermentations wave you has success with in the summer.
If you are leaving your fermenter outside then there is no yeast that can survive over 95 degrees that I know of. A good lager yeast can be left in the refrigerator and ferment for months at around 45 degrees. Other things depend on how you want your cider, such as carbonated and alcohol content.
The use of a chest freezer keeps me brewing 12 months out of the year here in AZ. It does get easier when brewing at midnight when it gets down to 105-110°F. But either way you still need the ice to get the wort down to pitching temp.
Good luck,
Wild
Wild wrote:
The use of a chest freezer keeps me brewing 12 months out of the year here in AZ. It does get easier when brewing at midnight when it gets down to 105-110°F. But either way you still need the ice to get the wort down to pitching temp.
Good luck,
Wild
105-110F...at midnight.......yeah, that would suck......I guess you get used to it........
SWAMP COOLER!
In the summer I put my primary in a big rubbermaid bin filled with water. I have four or five 2 liter soda bottles that I freeze and use as icepacks. 2 in the freezer 2 in the rubbermaid bin rotated twice a day. Helps keep everything cool.
I brew in AZ during the summer......
I have a door on my kitchen and I close that so the house doesn't heat up during the boil. When I ferment I keep my carboy in the guest bath tub with a wet towel wrapped around it. Works every time.
Are y ou guys COOKING the juice for cider, or are you talking about wort in general?
I make lots of apple cider (starting a new batch probably this weekend) and I never heat it up... ever. Boiling makes pectin haze from hell... besides, you don't need to heat it up. If you are starting with commercially packaged juice, it's pretty much sanatized in the bottle and stays that way till you break the seal. If you are using local roadside apple cider (non pasturized, fresh from the farm) (not a lot of apple orchards in AZ though so I dont imagine you are) then the easiest way to kill off wild yeast is chemically with Campden tablets.
As far as fermenting temps, as a rule, ciders like warmer temps. Something about the natural sugars in the apples being a bit harder for the yeast to convert... I try to ferment mine at about 80 degrees (yes, really) add about a week to fermentation for every 10 degrees below 80 (*personal observation)
f you want a higher alcohol content go with Lalvin EC1118 yeast; it'll make the cider dry and very tart and you may have to suspend the yeast if you sweeten it after fermentation or you run the risk of exploding bottles (actually, it's more than a risk, it's damn near a certainty). For a sweeter cider, (and a slightly lower alcohol content... about 7%) go with Lalvin 71B-1122 (it's commonly used in mead). If you plan on using an ale yeast you can go about 5-10 degrees higher than the range listed on the package most of the time. (You won't get high krausen like you are accustomed to getting with your beer.)
Try to get juice which is slightly tart... it seems to make a more refreshing cider, but honestly, almost any apple juice will do. Be sure that the juice you start with has no preservatives because they can inhibit yeast, and avoid juice with added sugar like the plague... it will make cider with such a high alcohol content that only college frat boys could like it.
After fermentation completes, rack it over to secondary and wait another 10 days or so. About 4 days before bottling, try to get the temp down in the 40-50 range. Makes the trub settle out better and you get a cleaner end product.
Hope that helped.
Until this last New Year's Day I had only brewed beers but now I can say that I'm a meader too! But any kind of brewing takes on a whole new meaning here in the summer. The things we'll do for our beers.
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